Zee Telugu is an Indian

Telugu Telugu may refer to: * Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of India *Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India * Telugu script, used to write the Telugu language ** Telugu (Unicode block), a block of Telugu characters in Unicode S ...

-language

general entertainment Entertainment is a form of activity that holds the attention and interest of an audience or gives pleasure and delight. It can be an idea or a task, but is more likely to be one of the activities or events that have developed over thousand ...

pay television Pay television, also known as subscription television, premium television or, when referring to an individual service, a premium channel, refers to Subscription business model, subscription-based television services, usually provided by multichan ...

channel in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

. It was launched on 12 September 2004 as ''Alpha Telugu'' and was rebranded as ''Zee Telugu'' on 18 May 2005. The channel is owned by

Zee Entertainment Enterprises Zee Entertainment Enterprises (formerly Zee Telefilms) is an Indian media conglomerate owned by Essel Group. Headquartered in Mumbai, it has interests in television, print, internet, film, businesses related to mobile contents, and operates 45 ...

. Zee Telugu was the 9th most popular channel in India and had a TRP of 1593 impressions as of September 2021.

Establishment

In 2004,

Zee Network Zee Entertainment Enterprises (formerly Zee Telefilms) is an Indian media conglomerate owned by Essel Group. Headquartered in Mumbai, it has interests in television, print, internet, film, businesses related to mobile contents, and operates ...

had channels in

Bengali Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to: *something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia * Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region * Bengali language, the language they speak ** Bengali alphabet, the w ...

Gujarati Gujarati may refer to: * something of, from, or related to Gujarat, a state of India * Gujarati people, the major ethnic group of Gujarat * Gujarati language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by them * Gujarati languages, the Western Indo-Aryan sub ...

Marathi Marathi may refer to: *Marathi people, an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group of Maharashtra, India *Marathi language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people *Palaiosouda, also known as Marathi, a small island in Greece See also * * ...

, and Punjabi. Its proposed Telugu-language channel was expected to launch by August 2004, but the launch did not take place until September. The channel launched with the name Alpha TV Telugu, but was later renamed to Zee Telugu. It initially featured a large number of American films dubbed into Telugu. In August 2007, the network also dubbed

Bollywood Hindi cinema, popularly known as Bollywood and formerly as Bombay cinema, refers to the film industry based in Mumbai, engaged in production of motion pictures in Hindi language. The popular term Bollywood, is a portmanteau of "Bombay" (fo ...

film ''

Sholay ''Sholay'' (, ) is a 1975 Indian Hindi-language action-adventure film directed by Ramesh Sippy, produced by his father G. P. Sippy, and written by Salim–Javed. The film is about two criminals, Veeru (Dharmendra) and Jai (Amitabh Bachchan) ...

'' from Hindi into Telugu as an experiment.

History

In September 2005, the channel announced that Sanjay Reddy would be their new

chief executive officer A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

, succeeding Ajay Kumar, who had left several months previously. Reddy had previously worked at

The Walt Disney Company The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...

and Pearl Media.

By December 2005, Zee Telugu had only achieved a 1.24% weekday and 1.86% weekend market share in

Andhra Pradesh Andhra Pradesh (, abbr. AP) is a state in the south-eastern coastal region of India. It is the seventh-largest state by area covering an area of and tenth-most populous state with 49,386,799 inhabitants. It is bordered by Telangana to the ...

. As a result, it re-launched in order to shift the

target market A target market, also known as serviceable obtainable market (SOM), is a group of customers within a business's serviceable available market at which a business aims its marketing efforts and resources. A target market is a subset of the total ma ...

from a mass market to a segmented market of young professionals. In late 2006, Zee Telugu began work on ''Sa Re Ga Ma Pa'', a Telugu-language singing competition, and was scheduled to run for 35 episodes. Zee Telugu announced plans to launch ''Little Champs'', a version of the show aimed at viewers ages 6–13, hosted by

N. C. Karunya N. C. Karunya is an Indian playback singer, stage performer, YouTuber, songwriter, and TV show host. His rise to fame was the reality show ''Indian Idol'' (Season 2) on Sony Entertainment Television. After ''Indian Idol'' he became a recording ...

Programming

References

External links

Official siteZee Telugu
on

Zee5 ZEE5 is an Indian subscription video on-demand and over-the-top streaming service, run by Zee Entertainment Enterprises. It was launched in India on 14 February 2018 with content in 12 languages. The ZEE5 mobile app is available on Web, Androi ...

{{Telugu Language Television Telugu-language television channels Television channels and stations established in 2004 Zee Entertainment Enterprises Television stations in Hyderabad 2004 establishments in Andhra Pradesh